…a blog about a married couple doing things

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Recreation

I’ve been doing yoga for a little over 2 years but joined a new studio 6 months ago because we moved. This studio is on a different level. It’s 10x more intense than my previous one, all classes are heated, and sometimes it’s like a circus in there. People are literally walking on their hands. It’s a pretty tight-knit group (which I’m still figuring out how to break into which I’m guessing means the $2500 yoga retreat) but I’d like to point out some of those in this special group:

1.The Power Couple – Guy looks like he should be in an ’80s heart throb movie. Girl looks like she should be an ’80s aerobics instructor. They always sit front and center. Front is not only where the mirror is but it’s also where the room is the most hot. These two are the most envied of enviable but recently, they’ve being coming to classes separately. A breakup would devastate and possibly shut down the entire studio. Oh, and they only attend power classes in the evenings.

2. The Space Cadet – Person who is not aware of the space around them and/or has no concern for others’ space. This can include a) the person who tries to squeeze in between two mats that are only 1.5 feet apart, b) the person whose mat is so close to yours and who only moves when your sweat has gotten all over theirs (true story), and c) the yogi who does arm balances with their feet in your mouth.

3. The Grunter/Moaner – This includes a) guy who does so many handstands in vinyasa that he is grunting every other minute (and eventually falling over) and b) the girl who moans when exhaling.

4. The Class Favorite – All I hear is “_____, beautiful pose!” or “I’m going to teach you guys something but I know _____ has mastered it” or “Let me demonstrate on _______.” While she is very flexible, I don’t think she’s the best in class because I haven’t seen her do many arm balances. Somehow she just magically became the favorite.

5. The Hottie – Let me just say the majority of the people at my studio are fairly attractive but there’s one person who has the Barbie body AND has to wear the lowest cut sports bra made in mankind. She obviously ignores the support level rating on bra tags… A-cup support for her D’s are just fine.

I’ve been working on my tripod headstands for the past couple weeks and finally did the transition into pike long enough for a photo be taken and then my body gracefully collapsed onto the ground. These pants also do not hide crotch sweat very well, NOT PICTURED obviously.

One Republic at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. I cannot even begin to talk about how amazing Ryan Tedder sounds live, even better than when I saw them 5 years ago. I seriously got teary during some songs.

Sunday breakfast.

Last year, we planted flavorless jalapenos. This year, we’re attempting roma tomatoes and look how much they’ve grown in the last week!

I had extra potting soil so we got Thai chilies (left) and Anaheim chilies (right).

Orange is the New Black Season 2. If it were up to me, I’d finish this by now but Terry is making us pace ourselves so we only got in 3 episodes this past weekend. Why did I get him into it? PSH! I love the poster variations.

First time beating Terry at any type of shooting game! Of course he said his gun was malfunctioning and shooting slightly off. To give him some credit, I did start using his shooting technique, as displayed in the picture, halfway throughout the game which I’m guessing led me to victory.

FYI — If you decide to do this in SF, make sure you have a Groupon. It’s a total rip-off if not.

As if the perpetual stresses of training for Tough Mudder weren’t enough, I decided to do another ridiculous thing and sign up for the San Jose Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon on October 6, 2013. I figure this would be a good entryway race (Color Run 5k and Tough Mudder don’t count) to do because it’s all flat and is fun with live music at every mile. But now the madness starts all over again. If I’m not running, I think about running. If I run, I wonder if I’m running long and hard enough. The perk is to be able to eat like Godzilla (did he ever eat in films?). I feel like my metabolism is going berserk, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to go back to “normal” eating habits once this is all over. Between the end of Tough Mudder and the beginning of half-marathon training, there was one week and that one week I still ate carbs like I was a supreme athlete when in fact, I was doing nothing at all (I was sick).

A great resource for runners is Hal Highdon Training Programs. He actually has training programs developed for most common race distances for those who are novices, intermediate, advanced seniors, walkers, etc. It’s pretty nifty. I decided to go with the Novice 1 Training Program (below) which incorporates a lot of stretching because I wanted to keep yoga in the routine. I’m sure I could do this with the other programs available but that would pretty much require that I work out almost every day of the week.

This time around, my motivation is not as strong. I’m pretty sure it’s because I don’t have 10 other people on my team to disappoint. Well, at least there will be none of this:

With running, I am pretty late in the game to this. Most of my friends began actively running and doing races right ouf of college and I’m only beginning as I veer towards 30. Funny enough, running is a sign that you are turning 30. See #3 on this Buzzfeed article.

Praise the L that none of us got significantly hurt, minus the normal calf cramps, falling down, scrapes, and bruises. I haven’t done any “real races” or similar (Color Run doesn’t count) but the feeling of accomplishment you get going through electroshock therapy and then the finishing line is SPECTACULAR. I wouldn’t do this again though. I’m not an addict.

What I would recommend for you folks contemplating Tough Mudder SPECIFICALLY in Tahoe is: PRACTICE HIKING & RUNNING UPHILL. The course starts mid-mountain at Northstar and the first 5 miles is all uphill until you reach the 8,600 foot summit. A lot of people stopped running, unless of course you are just that hardcore. Once you get to the top, you have to go through electric eel before they let you stop at the water/food station.

One of my favorite television shows of all time. Perfectly summed up in this article, “irony, sarcasm, and meanness” coupled with sweetness and underlying sentiment is exactly why I love this show so much. It is my cup of tea through and through.

I’ve always been really slow to catch on to shows… REALLY slow. The Office first aired in 2005 which would’ve been a perfect time for me to start watching as that was the year I graduated from college and was starting the monotonous office years in a dying newspaper company (correlation?). It would’ve been nice to know the world knew what I was going through but for some reason, I resisted. What in the world was I watching at that time? I can’t even remember. I didn’t start watching heavily until 2008 when the economy was starting to crumble and I literally had no work to do. I sat in an inconspicuous part of our office nestled in the corner of some walls. It reached such a lull that I would literally go to the Blockbuster (dating myself again) down the street, rent the DVDs, and pop them into my computer.

See what I mean?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a hard-worker when there is work to do.

There are so many moments that I have loved about The Office but here are two that spring to my mind (taken from Wikipedia):

In a talking-head interview in “Prince Family Paper“, Michael states that “The business world is a doggy-dog world.” instead of dog eat dog world. Terry probably knows best that I am awful with idioms. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in an immigrant household but 99.9% of idioms have not caught on for me (game: spot the two idioms I’ve already used!). When Michael says this, I finally FINALLY knew that “doggy dog” was actually the INCORRECT phrase because they were making fun of it. That’s what I thought it was the ENTIRE TIME I’ve been alive up until that point when that episode prompted me to look up what the phrase really was and what it really meant. Yes, I was an English major in college.

In the episode “Business School“, Michael is one of the few Dunder Mifflin employees to show up to Pam’s gallery showing. Unlike Oscar and his then-boyfriend Gil, who had shown up and were critical of Pam’s drawings (which Pam overheard), Michael immediately marvels at her work and asks to buy Pam’s drawing of their office building. In a moment of sincere kindness, Michael tells Pam that he is very proud of her. Pam begins to tear up and hugs Michael, who also seems touched by Pam’s reaction. Oh, my, goodness. I bawled like a newborn baby at this moment. I was watching the DVD at home (surprise) and then decided to watch the behind-the-scenes commentary. They actually said that they were surprised at how many people were touched to tears by this scene. Duh! How many of us have daddy issues?

Another reason why I loved the show so much was because there were so many correlations from the characters to the bosses in my life:

Michael Scott – A boss I had who loved to torment me for humor’s sake and not in the we-all-think-it’s-funny-way but the only-he-thinks-it’s-funny way. He souped up his Yaris to put a DVD player so he could watch The Hangover non-stop and blamed me for borrowing a coworker’s parking pass in front a security guard (it was his idea).

Jan Levenson – A tiger boss that I recently had who was pretty much angry and just wanted to have a baby.

Charles Miner – A no-fun boss I had who was full of condescending and demeaning comments towards me. At this job, I was literally the social lifeline of the office and he dared say to me in a one-on-one meeting that I needed to be more social. What the who?!

Robert California – A CEO of a previous company I worked for. He tried to be inspiring on the outside but intimidating and manipulative on the inside. He promoted a “fun” environment at work which is why we had a pool table, big screen TV with cable, gaming chairs, an arcade, etc. but did not encourage a work-life balance so nobody really had time to use these things and if they did, they were probably at work for 12 hours that day.

Even though The Office had downs in its more recent seasons, no other show will compare! It was a humorous take on real and relevant situations, down to attending silly work conferences, meetings, and the daily drab. Who will understand me now?

Me: When are you going to give me my mother’s day gift for being your dog mama?Terry: Wasn’t that sushi yesterday?Me: Oh was it?Terry: Perhaps, it could be that.

We usually don’t like to pack in our weekends too much even though that’s what usually happens. Luckily, Saturday was filled with all fun. We took my dad to dim sum, napped, visited our friend’s new indoor golf place, went to the Goodwill BOUTIQUE (that’s right; not store) in West Portal, then ate some fantastic sushi. Quality sushi is hard to come by so when we are able to get it, I want to cry. On the way home from sushi, we stopped by McDonald’s to get a McFlurry… what we really wanted was a blizzard from talking about Dairy Queen so much lately but there are none that close to my house. Well, there is one by it’s in a scary mall.

This past Saturday, Jin and I decided to do something fun for her birthday… paint something. I won’t go into all the details but if you want to read my full review, here you go!

Blank slate.Our instructor (in the blue) who pretty much only helped her friends (the people she’s talking to).Thinking of what to paint. J/k… it had already been decided for us.Drew a horizon line and then painted the sky.Painted some rocks.Painted some more rocks?Filled in the ocean water.Drew a moon by outlining my plate. Other people freehanded it but that’s not my thing.Shaded the moon and drew a boat.Drew some waves crashing onto the rocks. Finished the boat. Terry saw this part and said “you were rushing this huh?” He knows me too well.More waves. Put some stars, regular and shooting.VOILA! Jin’s turned out closer to what the instructor had intended.

I would say Wine and Canvas is fun but stressful. This beauty is now propped on our dresser in our bedroom. Even a crappy piece of art really warms up the room. I’m not that modest so if I know I did a good job at something, I will say it but honestly, mine was the worst out of the entire class (from what I could see of the 30 people). If you compare my moon to Jin’s, you can see that I actually put too much paint so I couldn’t texturize it properly. Painting is probably not the best activity for me because I’m impatient and not detail-oriented. I’m still glad I did it… I will try anything at least once!

If you live in the Bay Area, you’ve probably walked by this alley of murals. If not, check it out! I love eating and walking around the Mission because it’s so “vibrant”, as in the streets are really dirty, the people are freaks, and occasionally you’ll find something unique like this. But ultimately, the food is good and that’s reason enough for me.

Lastly, I just had to take a picture of this girl taking a picture of herself. At first I wasn’t going to but then she did it so many times that I had enough time to contemplate about doing it and then actually do it.

I’m not really a runner but if I’m doing Tough Mudder this July, I better be doing something to not die. A couple gfs and I decided to do The Color Run because we heard that nobody takes it seriously and you get to take really colorful pictures. Both are in fact true. The motto for this run is “the happiest 5k on the planet” and everyone is in such a GREAT mood that you could probably punch them in the face and they’ll just smile at you.

Before the race even started, people were voluntarily pouring powder on themselves so my goal became to stay clean for as long as possible. I was actually pretty successful. Even when I went through the first color station (yellow), I ran right though the middle because the sprayers were standing on the sides and came out perfectly clean. After our second station, you can see that we still have most of our white showing.

Can’t say the same for some others… including those who subject their kids to this torture. Actually it would be a great experience for kids who won’t freak out at getting “dirty” because they end up looking so cute. I will definitely have to put this on a family to-do list for the future.

At the very last station (teal), one of the sprayers spotted me and yelled to her accomplices “SHE’S STILL WHITE!!!!” so I got demolished after that. Also at the end of the race, you each have a color packet that you open and toss on everyone around you and my friends… well are they really my friends? Look at what they did to me:

After this, we went with our men to gorge on fried chicken and waffles. Thanks to the hub for coming out to support me and snap all these fly photos! I love having my photo taken except we had to toss a bunch because I am not that photogenic; you might be shocked to read that. I recommend everyone try this run at least once in your life… it kind of brings out the inner kid in you. I’m guessing it’s because you get to throw stuff and because they play a lot of EDM.